teaching

  • Writing about teaching and learning
  • General resources
  • Courses and syllabi
  • Teaching portfolio (UBC Blogs site): includes
    —Current C.V. (institutional format, updated annually)
    —Statement of Teaching Philosophy (short one-page version)
    —Teaching Statement (long version: statement of teaching philosophy – statement of experience of working with a diverse student body and contributions or potential contributions to creating / advancing a culture of equity and inclusion – statement of contributions or potential contributions to educational leadership)
    —Overview of Teaching Responsibilities (2022 version from Peer Review of Teaching; the current version will look similar but substituting the last 5 years’ overview of teaching responsibilities, list of courses with student enrolment, assessment practices, and teaching objectives and methods; on which see current C.V.)

img_0591I have the good fortune to be in a full-time academic job in the teaching stream, a parallel track to the research faculty stream. This is good for separating otium from officium and negotium, whilst maintaining a fluidly-intersecting area of otium negotiosum / sanctum.

I mostly teach French language; also literature in French and its cultural environment; and medieval literature, some of which is in French or from what is now France.

For most of my courses, at least some of the materials are openly available online. This is important to me personally and politically and because I work at a public institution in a democracy: to ensure that, for current and future courses, as much as possible is free for anyone to use; provided that such materials have been the product of fair labour, that they are properly credited and not commercially exploited, and that their use abides by Creative Commons BY-NC-SA licence terms.

Most of my teaching is not overtly or obviously medieval. This is a good thing to encourage thinking more creatively when teaching so as to bring in the medieval: medieval things, medieval teaching and learning, applied medievalism (of which here is a practical teaching example from a UBC class, and here are some more). Thinking when teaching, and thinking about teaching when teaching, make for better teaching (I think). It has also been my experience that something is more enjoyable if you’re being more imaginative and otherwise intellectually active while doing it, and that your enjoyment makes the thing more enjoyable for others involved. Spread the joy.

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Resources

Some general stuff that might be useful to others:

  • COVID-19: online teaching during the move to working from home (March-August 2020, for teaching and learning September 2020-August 2021); readings that were useful to me and might be useful for others, some sample activities, some free open access resources online such as films, some reflection and writing about teaching remotely.
  • After that I didn’t write about teaching, or about anything else, while teaching online from September 2020 to August 2021. When we returned to campus in September-December 2021 one of my classes was online and the other two were  (by my choice, to support students) hybrid / multimodal (that is, simultaneously both in physical and virtual person). I didn’t write on here, and barely thought, except once: “On work, overwork, folly, and resistance” (October 2021), which starts: “Last year I worked every weekend from mid-March to the end of September. […] Those weekends were in addition to weekdays and including working during one month’s contractual annual leave. As unpaid overtime. Every week that was at least 20% and at most 100%, assuming a regular working week to be 40 hours.” While that piece of writing is a different kind of resource from the others that follow below, it is at least as essential.
  • HELP (syllabus part 3) (2018 version): general useful openly-accessible freely-available UBC information. I use these resources a lot with students in office hours (and other guidance, support, and pastoral care associated with teaching), you might also find them helpful, and they could also help you to help someone else. There are many people here at UBC who can help; even if it is “just” talking to someone with whom you feel comfortable and whom you trust, who will listen to you, that alone is already a vital service. Even if sometimes this seems like an overwhelmingly large university, and impersonal through its size and complexity: UBC is a compassionate caring community, made up of individual human beings. Departments, the student AMS, academic advising, UBC student support, stress, anxiety, sleep, well-being, exam preparation, safety, accidents, emergencies.
  • REVISING FOR EXAMS (2018 version): revision guide for beginners’ French, general exam preparation and revision guidance, exam season guidance, and (local, UBC) exam practicalities
  • ON READING, WRITING, AND COMMENTARY (2012, revised and links last checked 2016, minor tweaks 2018-22)
  • Resources for writing in French on literature in French, for FREN 220 (2017):
  • Resources for French: This is a slightly more up-to-date version of my old outils utiles (2010). It was a version of my original 2003 curated collection of resources, and revised in turn through 2012-24 (see UBC Blogs and Canvas course sites listed further down). As much as possible is freely available online. Resource categories:
    – listening and watching
    – pronunciation
    – sound atlas of French varieties in Canada
    – gender in French, including inclusive French
    – grammar
    – dictionaries
    – reading
    – local Francophone life

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Courses

Here are courses that I’ve designed, and taught recently or currently teach, including syllabus. Some are WordPress archived copies, some are at UBC Blogs (an institutional version of WP). I’m slowly working on making archive sites for all courses that I’ve designed.

FRENCH LANGUAGE

  • FREN 101 & 102: ab initio beginners’ French, to between CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) level A1 and A2. While I’ve taught all levels, beginners’ courses is what I’ve worked on most for course coordination (2012-21) and design.
    = all now on UBC Canvas

    • FREN 101 (September-December 2021)
      New course design, and new textbook (Odyssée 1)
      —In 2021, teaching was … complicated … as we returned to classes on campus, but for practical reasons students could attend and participate in class in physical or in virtual person, so I taught both simultaneously, hyflex / multimodal.
      (2021W2 = no 102 course design as I was on sabbatical).
      —2021W1 FREN101 COMMONS @ UBC Canvas and my own section, 2021W1 FREN101-106 @ UBC Canvas: Canvas institutional access if you have a UBC CWL
    • FREN 101 & 102 (May 2020-August 2021)
      Based on the 2018-19 version but redesigned to be online (yet still synchronous) during the COVD-19 pandemic lockdown between spring 2020 and the end of summer 2021.
      —Sample course description, syllabus, and learning objectives are also in a shared Dropbox folder.
      —2020S1 FREN101 COMMONS @ UBC Canvas: Canvas institutional access if you have a UBC CWL
      —2020S2 FREN102 COMMONS @ UBC Canvas: Canvas institutional access if you have a UBC CWL
      —2020W1 FREN101 COMMONS: reused and redesigned for 2021W1
      —2020W2 FREN102 COMMONS @ UBC Canvas: Canvas institutional access if you have a UBC CWL
    • FREN 101 & 102 (September 2012-April 2020)
      Three new course designs.
      (1) 2018-19: FREN 101 and 102 @ UBC Blogs course design, and new textbook (Cosmopolite 1): up to April 2020, featuring the mid-March COVID-19 “pivot” and six weeks’ subsequent emergency onlinising
      —bonus! includes a case study in covidifying a large multiple-section course as a practical exercise in consent: making changes consensually, democratically, transparently, compassionately, and humanely (vs the usual opposite of all of these that usually characterises emergencies) during the public higher education “pivot” (March-April 2020)
      (2) 2013-18: FREN 101 (ARCHIVE) @ UBC Blogs and FREN 102 (ARCHIVE) @ UBC Blogs course design, and new textbook (Horizons)
      (3) 2012: did not use UBC Blogs sites: co-cordinating with Jacques Bodolec, we used the previous LMS, email, and a shared Dropbox
  • FREN 201 & 202 (previously called 111 & 112): intermediate French, CEFR level A2; taught, not designed
    —almost entirely in French, with English occasionally for theoretical or abstract communication and occasional vocabulary translation
    (UBC Canvas)
  • FREN 301 & 302 (previously called 122 & 123): contemporary French language and literature (post-Year 12 / antique traditional “first-year university French”), now redesigned as a CEFR level B1 course; taught, not designed
    —in French
    (UBC Connect / Canvas)
  • FREN 402: upper-intermediate French II, CEFR level B2 (and beyond, including a deepening of grammar and adding the passé simple, as a foundation for advanced courses in grammar, critical analysis, linguistics, translation, and literature); taught, not designed
    —in French
    (UBC Canvas)
  • French for Reading: an ab initio French course for (post)graduate students, for reading and research purposes. As the name suggests, this course is focused on reading: taking students to what in the CEFR would be between a general B2 and a specialist C1-C2 level. A.k.a. “Du degré zéro à Derrida.”
    Originally run (2005 & 2006) as a summer intensive course: six weeks, five days a week, three hours a day + three to four hours’ practice and homework a day; with maximum eighteen students.
    The original site was at …princeton.edu/~julietobrien.
    I’m working on adapting the syllabus, structure, and general design to a guided independent study version, for use by graduate students and others with similar reading requirements. The textbook used (and abused, because it is half a century old and therefore hilarious–its exemplary scholarly texts can be from the century before last–but, like a fine wine, also improves with age) is a solid classic: Karl C. Sandberg, French for Reading (1968). Used copies can be found via the usual online e-tailing suspects, and the full text is available in PDF through Scribd.com
  • FREN 215: French conversation / oral practice for non-native speakers
    at the traditional second-year university level (equivalent to CEFR B2 to C1 level)
    —in French
    FREN 215 @ UBC Blogs
    (access restricted to UBC people, though not just students, anyone with a CWL)

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MEDIEVAL FRENCH & MEDIEVAL LITERATURES & CULTURES

  • FREN 220: Introduction to Early French Literature (up to the 17th c.) and to Textual Analysis
    —in French
    FREN 220 @ UBC Blogs
  • FREN 320: Advanced Studies in Literature from 1000 to 1700; multiple-section team with minimal structural elements in common—required readings, general weighting of assignments, co-created final exam—but otherwise individual faculty design
    —in French
    FREN 320 @ UBC Blogs
  • RMST 221: Romance Studies: Literatures and Cultures of the Romance World I: Medieval to Early Modern
    —UBC Romance Studies courses are taught in English with original languages included for comparison; texts read and worked on in original or English depending on student programme and degree requirements
    —Themes:
    “ANIMAL READING” @ UBC Blogs
    “ADVENTURES”
    “MISCHIEF”
    “INTRIGUE”
  • RMST 201: Introduction to Literatures and Cultures of the Romance World I: Medieval to Early Modern. 
    —somewhat similar to RMST 221 above
    —Theme: the course’s official description, “An introduction to the main themes that shaped the Romance World as its different national identities emerged in the Mediterranean sphere.”
    RMST 201 @ UBC Blogs
  • RMST 321 / MDVL 301 (crosslisted): European Literature from the 5th to the 14th Century / French Literature from the Middle Ages to the Revolution
    —Theme:
    “A WORLD OF MARVELS” @ UBC Blogs
  • MDVL 301A: Medieval European Literature of the 5th to the 14th centuries
    —UBC Medieval Studies courses are taught in English with original languages included for comparison; texts read and worked on in original or English depending on student programme and degree requirements
    —Theme:
    “THE LIBERAL ARTS” @ UBC Blogs

INCLUDES MEDIEVAL (BUT NOT LITERATURE)

  • FREN 333: French civilization I: A historically-based approach to French civilization and culture from their origins (the dawn of human time and the domestication of fire) to the Third Republic (1875)
    —in French
    FREN 333 @ UBC Blogs

LITERATURE IN FRENCH (BUT NOT MEDIEVAL)

  • FREN 221: Introduction to Modern Literature (from the 18th c. onwards) written in French and to Textual Analysis; multiple-section team with minimal structural elements in common—required readings, general weighting of assignments, co-created final exam—but otherwise individual faculty design
    —in French
    FREN 221 @ UBC Blogs
  • FREN 420L: Selected Topics in French Literature and Culture: “Éducations sentimentales: Perceptions masculines du féminin dans la littérature française des 18e et 19e siècles”
    —in French
    “ÉDUCATIONS SENTIMENTALES” @ UBC Blogs 

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